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Royal Mint, Melbourne Branch, Melbourne, Victoria

The establishment of a branch of Her Majesty's Mint in Melbourne was under consideration for some years. Two requests were sent to the Imperial Parliament by both Houses of the Victorian Legislature, one in December 1859 and the other in May 1864. In September 1867 the Victorian Legislature passed an Act making permanent funding available for the proposed mint. In August 1869 Queen Victoria issued a Royal Proclamation declaring that gold coins made at the Melbourne Branch of the Royal Mint legal tender in all her dominions. The Melbourne Branch of the Royal Mint finally opened on 12 June 1872, 17 years after the Royal Mint had opened in Sydney. Like Sydney, Melbourne could not manufacture dies but it nevertheless was welcomed by Victorian medallists, who now had a choice of places where their work could be struck: the Mint or Stokes (then in partnership with Martin).

The Mint initially struck sovereigns and half-sovereigns, identical in every respect with those struck at the Royal Mint in London, except for a small M, added as a distinguishing mark.

Note: The Warrant appointing Col. Ward Deputy Master is in this file (work needed on when he became Major General). Ward published some material on the Melbourne Mint in the Argus (eg 5 Nov 1874) under the name CHRYSOS (ancient Greek for gold)